Derryvree’s Tundra Pools
Derryvree offers an unusually valuable glimpse because its fine sands and organic silts were sealed between two tills, deposits left by separate incursions of glacier ice. During the period represented by the intervening freshwater sediments, south Fermanagh was not buried beneath an ice sheet. It had shallow water, wet ground and plant-rich hollows in a cold, open landscape. Pollen, moss remains and insects indicate tundra or muskeg rather than woodland: grasses, sedges, herbs and juniper were present, while dry ground was probably patchy and sparsely vegetated. Pools and saturated mossy ground could persist beside exposed mineral soils, shaped by freezing, thawing and seasonal meltwater.